Self-stretching of a perturbed vortex filament. I: The asymptotic equation for deviations from a straight line (Q1176809)

The authors derive a new asymptotic equation for vortex filament motion in incompressible high Reynolds (Re) number flow. This simplified equation retains some of the effect of self-stretching and reduces to a perturbed cubic Schrödinger equation for the filament function \(\psi:(1/i)\psi_ \tau=\psi_{\sigma\sigma}+\varepsilon^ 2((1/2)|\psi|^ 2\psi-F[\psi])\). Here \(\tau,\sigma\) are special variables, \(\varepsilon\)=const is a parameter and \(F[ ]\) is a linear nonlocal operator (pseudo-differential operator): \[ F[\omega]=\int^ \infty_{-\infty}(1/| h|)^ 3[\omega(h+\sigma)-\omega(\sigma)- h\omega_ \sigma(h+\sigma)+(1/2)h^ 2H(1- | h|)\omega_{\sigma\sigma}(\sigma)]dh, \] where \(\omega_ \sigma=\partial\omega/\partial\sigma\) and \(H\) is Heaviside's distribution. The authors consider a filament whose core deviates initially from a given smooth curve only by small-amplitude, but short- wave-length displacement so that the axial length scale of these perturbations is small compared to an integral length of the background curve, but is much larger than a typical core size \(\delta=O(Re^{- 1/2})\) of the filament.